Local Housing Strategies Guidance

Partnership Working and Strategy Process

This assessment criteria looked at how partners had been involved in the strategy process.  The assessment considered if there was an appropriate vehicle to develop the LHS, with effective information sharing between key council services and community planning and if there had been co-ordination of sharing data sources.  Was it clear who was involved and if this was appropriate and was there evidence of Council ownership?  There should have been regular discussions with neighbouring authorities to identify cross boundary issues.  Equally there should have been opportunities for stakeholders to influence the content and priorities of the strategy.  Finally was there a programme of public consultation and proposals as to how stakeholders and the public would be involved in ongoing implementation and review?

Strengths

In general, those LHS which were assessed as having dealt with this criteria well have shown that there are appropriate groups in place to take the LHS forward, and there are indications that they will be effective.  Key stakeholders were also given the opportunity to be involved in identifying priorities and influencing the content.

Weaknesses

However, the issues which the assessment process identified as being weaker typically included a lack of discussion with neighbouring authorities and not identifying cross boundary issues.  In some cases there could have been stronger collaboration between partners about how to address common issues or information gaps or how they were to be involved in ongoing implementation or review.

Examples of Good Practice

Examples of good practice for how Partnership Working and Strategy Process were dealt with can be found in the following LHS.  For further information on these you should contact the Councils directly:

Fife Council

Orkney Islands Council

Perth and Kinross Council

The overall gradings achieved from the assessment of the Partnership Working and Strategy Process critical area were as follows: